The winter months can leave you with the feeling of exhaustion, as you expend so much energy dealing with cooler mornings, chilly evenings and days when snuggling under a blanket with a warm drink or bowl of hot soup sounds delightful. There is less sunlight, so your Vitamin D levels may plummet, causing you to feel extreme fatigue, as well as other exhaustion symptoms, including muscle aches and pains, inability to think clearly and weakness. Eating well this time of year is more important than ever, and including an abundance of fresh, whole, gluten free living foods is vital to keeping you healthy at this time of year.

Soups, stews, casseroles, pizza, lasagna, hot cocoa, and warm breakfast cereal are popular winter foods. Along with piping hot, steamy bowls of soup, these foods warm your insides and comfort you through the cold short days and long winter nights.

Unfortunately, temperatures above 118 ° F Fahrenheit destroy the enzymes, vitamins and phytochemicals and denature the proteins, resulting in food that is less than nutritionally beneficial. Eating an abundance of fresh, raw plant based foods is best for your health, yet the thought of eating a cold salad or drinking a frosty smoothie on a cold winter day is not particularly appealing when you’re trying to keep warm. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to eat foods that heat up your insides and contain the maximum nutritional benefit of fresh, whole living foods?

A common misconception is that raw foods are, by design, cold foods. Actually, this is far from the truth. When winter rolls around, it’s easy to create delicious raw foods dishes that warm the body from a both a thermal and energetic perspective, balance your energy levels and combat tiredness.

Confused? Well, let me explain. In several traditional medicine practices, most notably, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, the concept of hot vs. cold plays an important role in food selection. Diseases, people, foods, and emotions can all be classified as hot, cold or somewhere in between. When you think about warm or hot, you probably think about temperature.

In Chinese medicine, every food is believed to have an effect on the body’s metabolic temperature, which is different from the body temperature that you measure with a thermometer. Metabolic temperature is the heat energy generated through all your organ systems from the food that you eat and that your digestive system burns.

Still confused? Let me give a few examples. Ginger and cayenne are energetically warm. Even if served as part of a cold dish, they have the ability to push the energy deep and push the blood up and out to the surface of the body, thus raising the metabolic temperature.

If you’d like to keep healthy throughout the winter, stay warm, enjoy increased energy and avoid winter exhaustion symptoms, and enjoy the benefits of a diet that is mostly or exclusively fresh living foods, read on for a variety of practical strategies for creating warming raw food meals.

Living foods can be heated to 110° F and still maintain their aliveness, so you can enjoy hot soup and maintain the life-giving properties of the foods in it at the same time. And, while 110°F may not seem very hot, compared to boiling temperature at 212°F, 110°F does, indeed, feel hot to the touch. Think about how a hot tub heated to 104 ° F feels if you have any doubt. Heated living foods should be eaten right away, because they’ll cool down a lot more quickly than foods cooked at high temperatures.

Seven Strategies for Staying Warm with Living Foods

Below is a summary of ways to enjoy living foods to warm your insides this winter. This is excerpted from an article called Staying Warm with Living Foods I wrote last year for Purely Delicious Magazine, which can be found on my Free Articles page. Skip the exhaustion and enjoy the pure energy of warm living foods.

1- Make creamy living foods soups and sauces by blending green vegetables, nuts and seeds. There are several heating options. You can heat them by starting with hot water (between 110 and 120 degrees). With a high speed blender like the Blendtec or Vitamix, you can start with room temperature water and blend for longer than usual until the soup feels hot to touch. Pour the hot soup or sauce over chopped or grated raw vegetables to make a warm and delicious soup or stew.

You can gently heat raw soups and stews in a saucepan on the stove, using a digital thermometer to monitor the temperature to be sure it does not go above 110° F, so you don’t destroy any of the nutrients. An electric skillet can be used to warm foods if set to warm. Elysa Markowitz, in her delightful book, Warming Up to Living Foods, recommends the Rival electric skillet because it can keep the food temperature at or below 105° F.

A coffee warming plate can be used to warm soups. This is the part of an electric coffee maker that keeps the coffee warm after it has been brewed.

2- Learn to make hearty raw dishes like stews, casseroles, pizza, calzones, enchiladas and lasagna and heat them in your Excalibur dehydrator. The shelves are large enough to fit a casserole or baking dish and as many shelves as necessary can be removed to accommodate the depth of the dish. I’ve made raw lasagna and taken it out of the dehydrator only to be accused by raw food friends of eating cooked food because it looked so much like cooked lasagna. Raw pizza right out of the dehydrator is very comforting and delicious. Get a good Living Foods Recipe Book for complete details on how to make these very satisfying, very nutritious foods.

3- Make or buy dehydrated crackers and breads created from ingredients such as sprouted nuts, seeds, and grains combined with vegetables and spices. These are very comforting and warming on cold days. They’re loaded with nutrients, leaving you energized rather than exhausted, as baked goods often do. There are lots of recipe books and websites that have delicious and easy to prepare recipes. Warm breads and crackers taste great right out of the dehydrator!

A convection oven or a digitally controlled oven that can be set as low as 100°F can be used to warm living food recipes like lasagna, pizza , stews, and casseroles. Convection ovens even have fans, which make them useful for food dehydration.

4- Internal fire can be generated by the judicious use of herbs and spices. Nothing gets the digestive fire going like a sprinkle of ginger or cayenne pepper! If physically warming your food is not an option due to time or equipment constraints, then the liberal use of warming spices can create internal warmth. The warming herbs and spices are: Basil, Chili peppers, Cinnamon, Clove, Dill, Fennel, Garlic, Nutmeg, Onion, Parsley, Rosemary, Vinegar and Wasabi.

5- The Chinese medicine approach to classifying foods as warming, neutral and cooling can be used to create raw winter meals. Since each food has an effect on the body’s metabolic temperature, we can choose warming foods in cold winter to soothe and nourish. Foods that take longer to grow are generally more warming than foods that grow quickly. Most of the root vegetables, including carrot, potato, onions, rutabaga, parsnip, burdock and garlic, fall into the warming foods category. Corn and most nuts and seeds are also warming.

Grains tend to be warming as well. Sprouted grains can be hearty and comforting cold weather foods. Many of the grains can be sprouted and made into dehydrated breads, crackers, pizza crusts and cereals. Sprouted buckwheat makes an excellent granola and crunchy breakfast cereal. Served with warm nutmilk, sprouted buckwheat makes a hearty, warming breakfast. Oats can be sprouted and eaten as a breakfast cereal. Topped with cinnamon and nutmilk, sprouted oat porridge makes a great breakfast in the winter. Be cautious about eating oats if you have gluten intolerance, as oats contain a small amount of gluten. Sprouted Quinoa can be made into an excellent tabouli, or warmed and turned into a creamy soup base or cereal.

6- Delicious, warming vegetable dishes can be made by a process I like to refer to as cold sautéing. Start with vegetables that fall into the warming foods category, such as cabbage, collard greens, cauliflower, mustard greens and watercress. Lightly salt vegetables with a whole, unrefined salt, such as Himalayan or Celtic and massage the greens to break down the cell walls and release the nutrients. Allow to sit for 15 minutes or longer. You can speed up the process by covering with a weighted plate or placing in a macrobiotic tool called a salad press. Massage again, and then add dressing of your choice.

The salting and massaging wilts the vegetables and makes them more digestible. Cooking also breaks down the cell walls, at the expense of destroying enzymes, vitamins and phytochemicals. Using this technique, you get the best of both the cooked and raw worlds. You release more of the nutrients than you would by simply eating raw, and you preserve the heat sensitive nutrients that cooking destroys.

One of my favorite dishes is curried vegetables, a very satisfying cold weather food. I use the cold sautéing process described above, make a curry sauce by blending nuts, seeds or coconut with water and curry seasonings, mix the vegetables with the sauce and dehydrate for 3-4 hours or until warm and soft. Broccoli with cheese sauce is another favorite. Broccoli is covered with a favorite nut or seed cheese sauce and dehydrated 4-6 hours. We never seem to be able to make enough of it to satisfy everyone’s appetite!

7. Warm beverages are very soothing and satisfying in the cold weather. Warm apple cider, a winter favorite, can be made by juicing apples, spicing with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and ginger and warming using any of the methods described above.

My kids love raw hot cacao. I simply make nut milk using warm water, add cacao powder plus a sweetener like dates, agave, or yacon, and blend until smooth and warm. We serve it in mugs and even the neighbors and cousins love it! Finally, hot herbal tea is very soothing. You can get premade tea bags or make your own herbal blends. Hot water with lemon juice and/or freshly grated ginger warms me up on a cold day. Last winter was so unusually cold that I had an almost constant desire for hot tea. I bought an automatic hot water pot, which quickly warms water. I use the warm water not only for tea, but for soup and nut milk bases.
By now, the dreary prospect of cold salad for dinner all winter should be faded and the vision of plates of warm and comforting, nutrient dense, vital, and delicious living foods meals should be filling your heads, like the sugarplums dancing in the heads of the children in the Night before Christmas poem.
Follow these guidelines and you’ll soon be on your way to a healthy and vibrant, high energy winter. Exhaustion symptoms become a thing of the past.

Enjoy your adventure into the wonderful world of warm and living foods!

Recipe Resources

The following books contain delicious recipes for warming living foods:

• Markowitz, Elysa. Warming Up to Living Foods

• Dr. Ritamarie’s Feast Your Way to Health e-book

• Frederic Patenaude’ s Raw Winter Recipe Guide

References:
• Haas, Elson M. Staying Healthy With the Seasons.
• Pitchford, Paul. Healing With Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition (3rd Edition)
• Cousens, Gabriel. Conscious Eating
• Sommers, Craig. Raw Foods Bible.

Post your questions and comments about this topic below. Share your favorite recipe with us!

I’m sure you know by now that New Year’s Resolutions rarely work.  Just knowing that you can make them gives you the perfect excuse for making unhealthy choices through the holiday season.  But really, how fun will it be to wake up next year with an expanded mid-section, too tired to get out of bed much less exercise, and an assortment of aches and pains that you may be tempted to blame on old age?

The image of Santa Claus with his big belly stuffing himself with cookies and milk may somehow seem to make it ok to have just one more slice of pie. But really, is it worth it?

The time to start making 2009 your healthiest year ever is NOW.  But if you indulge in all the holiday cheer this month, by January 1, you’ll have a lot of catching up to do.

There is another choice.  You can decide that this year it’s going to be different, can’t you?

I’d love to help you arm yourself with the perfect tools so you can indulge without the bulge.  Enjoy delicious treats, celebrate joyfully at parties and family gatherings, and experience the energy and stamina to connect meaningfully with those you love.

Here are a few Fatigue Busting Resources for this Holiday Season:

1- Eating for Energy: Quick and Healthy Meal Preparation to Powerfully Fuel Your Body Is a free teleseminar, being offered this Thursday evening, december 11.   This teleclass will help you to avoid fatigue symptoms this holiday season.  http://www.drritamarie.com/energycall.htm

2-  *Magic in the Kitchen* is a live class on Sunday December 14 in Austin, Texas.  In this class, I’ll be morking my magic on fresh whole, living foods and creating delicious, energy enhancing meals, on the fly.  It’s easy enough that you cna do it too.   In addition to offering this class for half off my usual tuition, friends attend too at half of half price and I’m donating ten dollars for each full tuition and five dollars for each half tuition to a family in need this holiday season.  The class will be filmed, so even if you can’t come watch me work my magic and turn simple whole, fresh foods into decadently delicious meals, the DVD will be avaialble later.  There will be door prizes, a raffle and all kinds of fun activities to help you become more energetic, vibrant and healthy through the holidays and into the New Year.  http://www.DrRitamarie.com/HolidayClass2008.htm

4: Indulge Without the Bulge- Seven Secret Strategies for Thriving through the Holiday Season: DVD, booklet with recipes, and laminated reminder checklist:  http://www.IndulgeWithoutBulge.com

I look forward to connecting soon.

Love and Health

Dr. Ritamarie

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
Phone: 512 3499677
Austin, Texas 78730

In Summary:
http://www.drritamarie.com/energycall.htm
http://www.DrRitamarie.com/HolidayClass2008.htm

I’m so looking forward to December 14.  That’s the day I get to  use simple ingredients to create delicious, nutritious dishes, right before your eyes. And the good news is, you can learn to do it too. I have a passion for teaching simple techniques that turn plain old fruits and veggies into magnificent, delicious and beautiful dishes that make healthy eating FUN.

My classes are lively and empowering and you learn that eating healthy foods can be as easy as turning on If you live close enough to Austin Texas, plan on coming and spending the afternoon with me.

I’m so excited! This class will be different than anything I’ve done before. It will be empowering, informative and lots of fun. I’ll be doing things I’ve never done before in front of a live audience.

Clean out the Fridge Recipes: I’ll be teaching you how to make delicious, healthy meals on the fly, by using ingredients on hand. Bring in some fresh, raw fruits, vegetables, nuts or seeds and I’ll work with them.

Recipe Re-do:Send me your favorite holiday recipes in advance and I’ll pick a couple and demonstrate how to create amazingly healthy versions.

Recipe Request:Let me know in advance what you’d like to learn to make and I’ll do as many as I can.

Open Question and Answer session:Ask me any health or diet related question and if I can’t answer it on the spot, I’ll get an answer and respond on an FAQ page.

Bring a Friend Program:Your friend can attend with you for half price.

Raffles and Prizes: You’ll have a chance to win .
*Sign up by noon Wednesday December 3, and your name will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a one month coaching program with me valued at $497.
* Sign up by noon Thursday December 4, and your name will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a Break Through Strategy Session with me, valued at $197.
* Everyone who registers will be entered into a drawing to win e-books, programs, memberships and services.
* Everyone who attends will receive a special gift.

Call me crazy, but I’m ponly charging $37 for this 3 hour class.  That’s less than half what I normally charge for a 3 hour class.  Why?  It’s simple. It’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and Solstice, all right around the same time. It’s the season of gift giving and showing appreciation to those we care about. It’s my way of giving back to you.

In addition, I’ll donate $10 for each full price student and $5 for each half price student to a family in need this holiday season.

Bonuses

- The first 5 students to sign up and pre-pay will receive a copy of my home-study course “Eat Your Way - Out of Pain” , priced at $37, absolutely FREE
- The first 10 students to sign up and pre-pay will receive a coupon for $10 off any programs, classes or coaching sessions between January 1 and March 31, 2009.
- Sign-up by midnight Friday December 5, 2008 and receive a collection of 7 never before published smoothie recipes, taken from a book I’ll be publishing next year.

To register for the class, go to http://drritamarie.com/HolidayClass2008.htm

Love and Health,
Dr. Ritamarie

http://www.FreshnFunLiving.com
http://www.EatYourWayOutofPain.com
http://www.HolidayThrival.com
http://www.GreenSmoothieCleanse.com
http://www.GreenFoodMagic.com

E-Mail: DrRitamarie@DrRitamarie.com

I’ve been having so much fun working on my holiday book collection. Those who
know me well know that my 3 favorite things to do related to my work are
researching, writing and connecting.

By connecting I mean sharing my skills and knowledge with others in a way
that’s up front and personal. I love to teach classes, coach individuals and
lead small groups. I also love to create in the kitchen. It’s so much fun to
take seemingly simple fresh, whole ingredients and transform them into mouth
watering treats.

I’ve had lots of fun this past month playing with holiday recipes as I did final masterful tweaks to perfect the recipes for my books. The pumpkin pie has been the big hit. I did a few minor changes to the recipe and it’s divine.

I made the pumpkin pie a couple of weeks ago for a DVD demonstration and offered some to my son’s 14 year old friend. He said it was the best pumpkin pie he’s ever
eaten.

I offered some to my finicky 10 year old and he asked me to make it again for
Halloween.

I brought it to a raw foods potluck and I practically got knocked to the
ground by people swarming for the recipe.

I’ve offered some to everyone who’s come into my home and the vote is
unanimous. How can a gluten free, dairy free, low glycemic, raw pumpkin pie
taste so good? If you want to find out for yourself, you’ll just have to buy my
book “Fresh ‘n Fun Thanksgiving Feast” and the DVD “Indulge Without the Bulge”.

As I watch the downward health spiral each year, beginning with Halloween and
ending on New Year’s Day, I can’t help but wonder what the world would be like
if everyone ate from my recipe books instead of in the usual immune system
depleting ways. It would sure put a lot of doctors, hospitals and fast food
restaurants out of business.

Wake up, I’m dreaming again. Well, at least I sleep well at night, knowing that I’m part of the solution rather than part of the problem. You can be too, by sharing with all your friends how delicious healthy Thanksgiving foods can be.

Love and Health to you,

Dr. Ritamarie

www.FreshnFunLiving.com

Can you believe it’s already a week into October? Halloween is just a few weeks away. Shortly after that, Thanksgiving rolls around and Christmas is right around the corner. Slip in Hanukah, Kwanza and New Years and the year is over.

If you’re like most people, your eating goes down the drain right around October 31, and doesn’t seem to get back on track until January 1 when you make the same old New Year’s Resolutions to get in shape…you know, the ones you made last year and the year before that for as far back as you remember.

Starting with the Halloween candy and ending with the New Year’s Eve champagne, with lots of Turkey, cookies, and pumpkin pie in between, there’s no end to the opportunity for expanding your waistline and depleting your energy.

How would it feel to wake up on New Year’s Day feeling energetic, alert and fit? If that’s what you’re aiming for, then here’s a few strategies to keep you on target.

Start out by forgoing the bags and bags of halloween candy to give the trick-or-treaters. They will collect way more candy than they need without your contribution. Instead, go to the dollar store or the party supply store and buy more long lasting things to give the kids—pencils, superballs, whistles, and cool shaped erasers are just a few ideas. Put them all in a big cauldron and let the kids choose. I find that the kids love it. Besides, you’ll be able to save the leftovers for next year, rather than having to eat them.

Learn some yummy, health supporting substitutions for favorite holiday foods. Recipes can be easily found for healthy and delicious holiday treats like chocolate spiders, pumpkin pie, thanksgiving stuffing, gingerbread cookies and latkes.

Exercise at least 4 times a week. Yes, I know you get busy with preparing for holidays, shopping, and going to parties, but this is not the time to let your exercise go. Think about it this way. Every mile you walk burns about 100 calories. The more you exercise, the more you can indulge without guilt.

I’m looking forward to sharing more of my strategies through a series of healthy holiday tools, beginning with a live webcast teleclass on October 22 called Indulge Without The Bulge.

Keep your sight on how you want to feel on January 1, and refer to your goals whenever the temptations are about to carry you down the slippery slope to post holiday blues. Make more productive New Year’s Resolutions, and start the year fit, trim and joyful.

I had so much fun today.  I’m in Arizona, visiting my sister Barbara and brother Frank.  This morning, at my Barbara’s house, after a 2 1/2 hour brisk walk, I made us a big blender full of green smoothie….kale, dandelion greens, spinach, peaches, cherries,mango, banana, lime and ginger.  It was strong, but tasty.   My sister and I fed part of it to her grandson Jason, age 8 months.  He loved it.  So much so that I had to take pictures.  I posted them on my Green Smoothie Cleanse page  http://www.drritamarie.com/GreenCleanse.

In the afternoon, we went to my brother’s house.  We were talking about green smoothies, and my nephew Anthony, age 9, was fascinated.  He wanted to make one right away.  After a trip to the grocery store to buy ingredients, we got started.  He had his own ideas, and it was exciting to experience his creativity.  We made 3 different smoothies.  He decided that he wants to make them regularly and take them to school.

My sister-in-law Terese called me later to say that Anthony and Frank made another smoothie after we left, so he could have one for the next day.  Frank and Terese also liked them and plan to start drinking them more regularly.  Frank may even join in on my next Green Smoothie Cleanse October 5 - 12.  For more details go to http://www.drritamarie.com/GreenCleanse

It felt great to successfully introduce my nephews to green smoothies. Getting kids started on them so young is guaranteed to improve their health dramatically.

I’ll post Anthony’s recipes on the Green Cleanse Forum, which is one of the benefits that participants in the Green Cleanse Program y.

Have a beautiful Day.